not so fun new diet

So I bombed my sugar/glucose test that pregnant women take around 24 weeks along. My doctor said they don’t like to see levels above 135, and I am at 176. Yikes. I am doing well with weight gain, apparently though most of it is from carbs and sweets. So now I have to cut back on carbs and sweets, which probably take up about 3/4 of my diet. I am not going to lie, I have never had to watch what I eat before so I have absolutely no discipline in this. I am dreading having to do the research on what I should and shouldn’t eat and then incorporating that into my meal planning. I hate meal planning to begin with.

That was until I found this site (wow this sounds like an endorsement. Really it is just me rejoicing b/c I get to still be lazy). This woman is amazing and has provided 36 months… wait a sec, read that again please so you can fully grasp what I am saying here: THIRTY-SIX MONTHS of meal planning, breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner, all low-carb. She also has recipes for every single item on her site. She has been doing this since 2002 and continuously updates with new recipes. I just wanted to take a moment and share in my new found way to be lazy goodness!

With out further ado, HERE is her site. Enjoy 🙂

my new breakfast routine

Lately I have decided that I am not a healthy person. I mean, I am physically healthy, but I do not eat healthily, exercise or… ok I just don’t eat healthy or exercise. BUT I am amazingly healthy for someone who shouldn’t be… just ask my doctor. But, as time moves a long, I am realizing that I am getting closer and closer to having to be healthy for someone else too (a baby ya’ll!! but not yet!). So I am trying to get into a routine of making better choices with my health; at least when it comes to eating. I am too lazy right now to forgo sleep and add a little exercise to my day.

With the unhealthy eating, this is usually what my diet consist of each day: diet coke with two granola bars (the unhealthy, pre-packaged, sugary kind), maybe a banana, usually fast food for lunch, and dinner is just eat what you can (I don’t cook much). Oh, and throw in about 5 pieces of chocolate a day… maybe more. What?! It’s an addiction I know, but I love it! Yeah, unhealthy. I should be about 10 sizes larger than I am. So, in the whole “get healthy” thought process, I have decided to start the day off with fruit smoothies, add in some healthy snacks through out the day (celery and peanut butter anyone?) and actually start cooking at night (have yet to jump into that one, but that is a whole other post about the husband as well).

Here is what my morning smoothie is made up of (I got the recipe from here, but have made a couple of modifications):

1 1/4 cup of orange juice

1/2 banana

2 tbsp of Anutra (this is the nutritional supplement I add that is very seedy in texture, but has good stuff in it and I found for $18/container at Kroger)

handful of frozen berries (there is also a bag of frozen berries at Kroger that has rasberries, blueberries and blackberries in it for just $3.99 – one bag usually lasts me about 3-4 smoothies)

2 tbsp of protein

1/2 cup of sugar free vanilla yogurt

handful of spinach (you can’t taste it! and it adds iron to your smoothie)

Throw it all into a blender and mix it up until it is good and smooth in consistency (it’s a smoothie, hello!)

And that is it. Like I said, with the berries and the Anutra, it is a bit seedy, but if you just gulp it down it isn’t too bad. Trust me, if I – a very picky and high maintenance person with my food, can drink it, I am betting anyone can.

I usually will drink that and take a multi-vitamin, baby aspirin (blood clots run in my family) and a B-12 every morning. You really don’t notice the difference in energy until you have a day like I had yesterday. I slept late and didn’t get my current morning breakfast routine, so I had to settle for my previous breakfast plan: diet coke and two sugary granola bars. ALL day I was exhausted and couldn’t figure it out. Then at the end of the day it hit me: I didn’t have my healthy breakfast! So, today I made sure I jumped right back into it and am feeling great! Now if only I could get the motivation to start exercising…

What is your morning breakfast routine?

question…

Does it count if I took my kid vitamins (because I cannot stomach the grown up kind) with a Diet Pepsi and a cookie?

mixing the brew

Here are just a couple of pictures from mixing the Master Cleanse drink the other night. Pictures are always fun 🙂 And, I got to take them with my new camera, so that is even more fun.

What I have to drink in one day. And that is just the minimum!

The book we are reading suggests drinking an herbal laxative tea. (Have I started sharing too much yet? 😉

Me, trying to get excited about the laxative tea.

Tim, showing how excited he was for the laxative tea.

Here we go!

I didn't like the taste. And, btw, we had to take this picture a couple of times because I thought my reaction made my face a little too ugly. lol

Okay, so I am a major drama queen. This was not even the drink that is the detox. They just suggest pairing this to make the process “easier”. Okay, no more details on that, I promise. I mean, it doesn’t bother me, but I realize I might lose some of you if I do share 😉

Also, be expecting more photos on here now that I have this camera. I am excited!

Detox Day 1 – Not so much

Today was to be my first day of the whole Master Cleanse detox diet. Well, I had my mix and even my first cup (well, have of a cup at least) and it did not go over so well. The cayenne pepper burns my lips, mouth and throat. Then, after awhile, it started to make me sick at my stomach. That, paired with the cold I have, is not so great. Not only do I have this strange fluid going into my empty stomach, I also have snot draining into my stomach. I got sick with the first glass. So, it is being put off another week. I will try again when I don’t have this cold.

I promise, I am going to do it. Really, I do. I think it is really important and good for my body. I just can’t do it now.

I have also been told about cayenne pepper capsules. I am going to take two of those in the mornings and leave it out of the drink. Hopefully that way I will still get all of the benefits, but won’t burn myself. I hardly ever eat spicy food, so the cayenne was just too much.

Tomorrow I will try to post pictures of Tim and I starting the detox process. 🙂

Hope your day was great!

Do I really want to do this?

Over the past couple of years I have started noticing certain effects of food that I have not dealt with before. The unwanted weight gain, feeling horrible after eating loads of junk food and a severe lack of energy. Am I finally hitting the point in life where I actually have to pay attention to what I eat? Does it finally really matter what I eat? Do I need to start eating healthily and not just eat whatever I want in order to stop the hunger pangs? The answer to all of these is regrettably: yes.

I grew up a skinny girl. I have been asked several times if I really eat. Odd question, especially if that same person spends any amount of time around me. I LOVE to eat. Really, I do. So much so that it has become just a habit for me to eat while I am bored, or to eat something that I am sure I will love the taste, or to eat any time I start to feel the teeniest bit hungry. I am fortunate that I have this ability, and yet cursed at the same time. Don’t get me wrong, the curse is NOT that I have food to eat. The curse is that there is really no limit/boundary put in place as to how much I can eat. Seriously. There are snack canisters in my office. There is even a freaking jar of chocolate on my desk. Why wouldn’t I eat to my heart’s (or shall I say stomach’s) desire?! But, as I have gotten older, my body has began begging for me to stop. “Stop eating all of that crap you keep shoveling in your pie whole while we have to deal with it!”, shout all of the parts of my body (and my really tight jeans). Just tonight we went to the movies and I ate just a small amount of popcorn, now I feel really sick to my stomach. That is just no fun.

So, I have decided to listen. However much I WILL regret it later, I am infusing discipline into my diet.

Several months ago I read that Jamie and Aaron had decided to do the Master Cleanse. I was intrigued. I have wanted to do some sort of cleansing diet for a couple of years now, but was forewarned by my husband that it would make me have to “poop” a lot. That seemed to be enough to keep me away for the time being. Well, I am now moving forward, taking on the less favorable side effects as well as the good.

A couple of weeks ago I decided I would start the year off with the diet. I put off purchasing anything for it until tonight. I am such a procrastinator. I should have been better prepared. I had hoped to begin tomorrow, but am now deciding to put it off for another day, due to a lack of supplies needed.

I am actually excited about the whole diet. I have decided to let you all in on it. I promise not to reveal any gross details, for your sake and mine.

Also, after reading over the book I bought at Earth Fare, I am actually starting to be interested in becoming a vegetarian. We shall see how that turns out though. I love me some meat!

Tim has said that he is going to do at least a portion of the diet with me. He hopes to sheds some pounds with it (you aren’t eating for days and you are going to the bathroom multiple times a day, of course you are going to lose weight!) and start eating healthily. Both of us are grumps when hungry, so we will see how that turns out!

Let me know if any of you have done anything like this before. I am interested to hear how it turned out for you.

I’ll keep you posted 🙂

…trying to live healthily 10/05

I know, I know. I have really not been that great at keeping up with the whole “keeping you updated on my diet” thing. Well, to tell you the truth, I have stuck to the not eating a whole lot of sweets thing, but that is it. I haven’t kept up with planning my meals. I eat lean cuisines for lunch, but that is it. 😦 I have noticed my legs slimming down a tad. Hopefully I am not imagining that. And Tim says he sees it too.

I know what you are thinking. “He is your husband, of course he is going to tell you that”. Well, anyone who has known my husband for a minute (maybe longer than that) will know that he wouldn’t do that. He is definitely not mean about it, very sweet actually. But he is going to tell me the truth. Which means so much more to me.

Anyway, I have also not been able to walk/jog much either. One week it rained continuously. The next I was so swamped with homework I couldn’t get out of the house. Hopefully soon I will figure out this whole schedule thing.

I’ll keep you updated as much as I can.

…trying to live healthily 9/29

I think a lot of people try at this and fail. Darn my parents for not deciding to eat/live healthily until AFTER I moved out. Of course, my brother is a health nut and in incredible shape, so I really can’t blame them.

Anyway, I am a slim person, but that does NOT mean that I am healthy. Honestly, if I did not have a really good metabolism, I would most likely be severely obese. So, what I do have is all jiggle. And I just recently had to move up a pant size. I kind of had a break down a couple of weeks ago when I couldn’t fit into any of my pants w/o them being tight. It scared the crap out of Tim!

I have decided to try to live a healthy lifestyle. I am walking one mile a couple of times a week (hopefully three or four) and am eating healthier. I have cut sodas mostly from my diet. I have also cut back on sweets MAJORLY! I am talking, I used to each three or four bite sized Snickers or Milky Ways like three or four times a day. No joke. That is 12 to 16 bite sized chocolate candies every day. So, I have cut that out. I have maybe one or two of those chocolates now a day. I have substituted it with things like pistachios, celery with peanut butter and raisins, carrots. And I am not struggling at all! I was the first week, but am good now 🙂

To keep me accountable, I am going to try to post daily on here what my diet and exercise consists of that day. I am not a proactive person (which I hate), so hopefully this will be the change of that too. It won’t be anything drastic, so if you are a health nut and are in incredible shape (like my little brother), don’t judge me! But if you do have suggestions, please let me know!

Today’s diet consists of:

Breakfast: 1 cup Cheerios, 1 cup Fat Free Skim Milk, 1 Banana

Snack 1: celery with peanut butter and raisins

Lunch: Lean Cuisine Chicken Ranch Club (yum!)

Snack 2: 12 small carrots

Dinner: Don’t know yet. Maybe salmon.

Drink at least 64 ounces of water.

This afternoon I will walk one mile with my dogs.

So that is my day. Like I said, I will try to keep this posted as often as I can.

How are you living healthily?

homemade butta

Today is a much better day. Sorry for being so down in the dumps yesterday!

Today is a rainy day. And kind of chilly. I went to the Farmer’s Market this morning with my friend, Mary. It was loads of fun. And I think I ate the most delicious doughnut ever! Oh my goodness. It was homemade. I also bought some flowers, blueberry jam, and jalapeno & cheese bread. I found my weakness is the booths that have no one looking at their items. I feel sorry for them, meander over, and usually end up buying something! Dang my tenderheartedness!

After the Farmer’s Market, we went to Mary’s house. She pulled out some butter that was in a mason jar. I asked if she bought it and she said that she made it. Really? She showed me the stuff she made it with and sent me home with a mason jar of my own and the ingredients (organic whipping cream).

When I got home, I poured the whipping cream, along with some cinnamon, into the mason jar. I was told to shake it for a really long time. So shake I did! After 10 minutes the substance inside still did not look like butter. So I kept shaking it. After 15 minutes I declared that I would never do this again. After 20, I gave up. Tim said that it was still spreadable, so we could use it. But still. I love the idea of homemade stuff, but I think I am not too cut out for that!

Have you ever made homemade butter? Or anything else homemade?

Ethiopia: Food

I am falling behind on telling you about my trip to Ethiopia. Sorry!

Next, I’ll tell you about the food. To be honest, there were some things we just could not eat. Any fruits or vegetables that would have to be washed we could not eat (because we could not drink their water, and the food would have been washed with their water). We ate in a lot of restaurants. There were some that were really good, and some…not so great. The restaurant in our hotel was actually my favorite, when it had electricity.

Because they are in a drought (spelling?) they can only afford to give half the city electricity for half the day, and the other half of the city electricity for the other half of the day. The half of the city we were in rarely had electricity at night. A lot of places had generators, but our hotel was pretty large so the generator could not keep everything up and running. So, every night for dinner, the first question always was, “grill?”. If there was no grill, our choices diminished substantially. We were left to (and grateful for!) soup, salad (which we couldn’t eat), and spaghetti. They actually have some pretty good spaghetti.

Just to be safe a lot of times (b/c apparently I can be a picky eater at times) I would just order a toasted cheese sandwich. Or as we call it in the states, a grilled cheese sandwich. Of course, I could only have this when there was electricity, but it was so good 🙂 One funny moment that happened was the fourth or fifth time I had ordered the toasted cheese sandwich, I randomly ended up with a cheese burger. I just thought it was funny, and illustrated very well how inconsistent things are there. You just kind of have to go with the flow.

Ask just about any  (I say just about just in case there is that one Ethiopian with whom this does not apply) Ethiopian what their favorite food is, and they will instantly tell you injera. Injera is a type of bread that comes with pretty much all of their meals. It is kind of like a spongy, sour, flat bread. They will use injera instead of forks. They will just pick up their food with a piece of injera and eat it all. Some times we would see pieces delivered to tables that was bigger than a large pizza. Personally, I did not enjoy, nor did anyone else on my team I don’t think. But Ethiopians sure do love it!

There was also something called a “coffee ceremony”. This usually happens when guests are over. The guests will be served 3 cups of coffee and popcorn. I was kind of nervous about this because I am NOT a coffee drinker, but knew I couldn’t really say no. Well, they were gracious and only served one cup of coffee, which was the size of what we would consider to be a shot at Starbucks. At one of the ceremonies the caffeine actually had kind of a bad effect on me. I hardly ever drink/eat things with caffeine…besides chocolate. So, when I had two cups of strong coffee with LOTS of sugar in them, I got a little wild. I sang someone’s name over and over. I actually recruited two guys to sing with me. (Pretty sure there is a video out there of that one). I was all over the place. Thankfully, my new friends just thought I was funny, and not crazy…hopefully.